1974

Walter Mondale and Edward Kennedy finally prevail re regulation of medical research with creation of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, which followed revelations of Tuskegee syphilis research and University of Cincinnati General Hospital research for Department of Defense (applying whole and partial body radiation to patients with terminal cancer). It also came after Edward Kennedy’s hearings on “Quality of Health Care –Human Experimentation” of 1973. The National Research Act “began the requirement for institutional review boards that had to rule on protocols of federally funded medical research” (Rothman, 182ff; Reverby, 100-103). In 1978, it was transformed into the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and given the scope Mondale had urged back in 1968 (Rothman, 189).